Comments (1)Revd Karen Rooms, vicar of St Ann with Emmanuel in St Ann’s, explains why she will be taking part in the National Day of Fasting tomorrow

THE other day I heard about a parent who is regularly going without meals so that she can feed her children.

I know this story is not uncommon. It is shocking that in this day and age, people in Britain are going hungry.

How does it feel to do without food for a day? Breakfast means I can keep going 'til lunchtime, but on a busy day, if I haven't eaten much during the day, by five o'clock I feel irritable. If you are anything like me, it is only a matter of hours before you reach for a biscuit or a piece of fruit between meals.

Most religious traditions are home to the practice of fasting – the practice of not eating, and for some not drinking either – for certain periods.

It is a way of focusing on God, gaining a sense of perspective, and of freeing us from the myriad desires to which we are addicted. For Christians, Lent, the six weeks before Easter, is our particular fasting season.

To be honest, I have never really taken this practice very seriously, but the faithfulness of Muslim friends fasting through the month of Ramadan has impressed me.

This year I am especially challenged by Dr Mark Hebden in Mansfield who is fasting through Lent in solidarity with those who are going hungry in Britain.

People really are going hungry. Diagnoses of malnutrition in our hospitals have nearly doubled in five years – over 5,000 in 2013. Visits to food banks have spiralled to half a million a year.

This coincides with capping increases to benefits to 1% rather than indexing them to inflation, and incompetency in and reform of the benefit system: 30% of those visiting food banks do so because their benefits have been delayed and 15% because they are under sanction.

Changes to the social fund have removed much of the final safety net. This is an enormous moral failing. Our welfare system is no longer a robust last line of defence against hunger.

This is not just a problem for those on benefits; those in work face a real risk of hunger. The majority of households in poverty are in work. Rising food prices, stagnant or falling real incomes, unemployment, and proliferation of casual work, run parallel to this rise in hunger. Is all of this acceptable in the seventh richest country in the world?

Could you do without food for a day? Please join in a national day of fasting tomorrow and help us show the Government that Britain is hungry for change.